


Call Out My Name

by WhenIFindLoveAgain



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Best Friends, Character Death, Character Study, Childhood Friends, Christian Character, Christianity, Church of England, Churches & Cathedrals, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gentleness, Insight, Internalized Homophobia, Light Angst, Love, M/M, Sad, Sweet, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:48:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26928400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhenIFindLoveAgain/pseuds/WhenIFindLoveAgain
Summary: Seungcheol and Joshua have been friends since they were fifteen, both newly moved to a pretty Village in the Cotswolds, when the brakes on Seungcheol's bike failed and he ran over Joshua on the edge of a canal. But, Joshua's Church of England minister and wife parents mistake Joshua and Seungcheol's relationship for secret homosexuality, and, as a result, it's been a constant battle between the Choi's and the Hong's over their sons. Seungcheol talks to Joshua about it at the same canal where they met on a trip home from University
Relationships: Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Hong Jisoo | Joshua
Kudos: 3





	Call Out My Name

**Author's Note:**

> This is sad, but, not heartbreaking. I'm not quite sure how go describe it; subduing, insightful, gentle, yes, but, ultimately, undeniably, it is a bit sad. All works out in the end, though. I hope you like it xxx

"What'd you scared of?" Choi Seungcheol asked his friend Joshua Hong. They were sitting beside each other on a low brick wall that overlooked the grassy, muddy banks of the canal system that ran through the Gloustershire village where they lived for the last five years. They had first met because Seungcheol's parents had wanted to get out of the city and attempt to enjoy life after Seungcheol's Father was diagnosed with stage-2 lung cancer, and, also new, their neighbours had been the Hong's, who had been moved from a Paris in South Wales by the Church of England to the little village in the Cotswolds. It was Seungcheol's Father who recognised their neighbours; "Weren't they in the newspaper?" He had said to his wife. "The natives went into their Church and tried to kill them because the last Minister in the Church had sexually abused all these kiddies and the Hong's didn't make a comment about it."

Seungcheol, then fifteen, had met Joshua, then also fifteen, by crashing into him on his bike. 

"SHIT! OUT OF THE WAY, MATE!" Seungcheol had hollered as loud as he could to a young man in a black and yellow striped jumper, bootleg jeans, and converse sneakers laying on the grassy bank behind a weeping willow three by the canal, sleeping or otherwise relaxing with his headphones on, one ankle propped up onto one of his knees. It was because of the brakes on Seungcheol's bike failing that he crashed fully into the canal, and, it was because of Joshua's headphones that Joshua didn't move in time and, in a split second decision, put his hand in a spot where it was then run over. 

"FUCK!" Seungcheol had screeched, swimming back to the surface of the canal, his bike down on the floor, looking over to where a young and very handsome guy about his age was on his knees in absolutely excruciating pain, cradling one of his hands gently and had tears pouring down from his eyes.

"Jesus Christ, what'd I do to you, dude?!" Seungcheol had got out of the canal as soon as he could as other villagers began to come over and see what had happened to the teenage boy.

There was blood everywhere and one of the bones of Joshua's wrist was sticking up...in the open air.

Seungcheol had thrown up all over the trunk of the weeping willow tree, and, onyl alter he found out that he was utterly covered in a form of algae that had steadily turned his skin a bright pink from irritation, and, apart from throwing up, that's why he was taken to the hospital along with Joshua. There Seungcheol had learned Joshua's name and a lot about him.

"I was comin' down the hill, mate, and, I felt the brakes pop - all loose air right?" Seungcheol had explained to him. "I'm so, so fuckin' sorry. You're Pa's no the angry sort, is 'e?"

"A bit." Joshua nodded. "But he's all bark, no bite. My Mum's really nice. They'll see it's a accident."

"My Dad's already got one foot in the fucking grave, e'll kill me." Seungcheol had groaned. He had been put into a shower at the hospital with a chemical-smelling soap that burned his eyes to help get rid of the bacteria from the algae that had been turning his skin pink and irritated like ezcesma suffer's experienced, and, leant his elbows onto the edge of Joshua's hospital bed. The matron of the ward knew that the Hong's were the new C-of-E representatives, and, the large, round-faced woman had promised Joshua to not ring his Dad until he was finishing something to do with old sods. 

From about there, Joshua and Seungcheol had been very good friends, and, both went to the same University in London, and, they had both come back to visit their parents at the same time. That now led to this.

"What do you mean?" Joshua's head twisted to the side, looking Seungcheol in the dark-navy illuminated darkness; the moon and the stars were out, and, the amber smouldering glow of the old-fashioned street-lighting of the village gave a warmth to the air, so, the darkness wasn't burnt away, but was comforted. Fireflies hummed through the air, it being the early summer, and, Seungcheol couldn't help glancing over to the weeping willow tree that Joshua had once been resting beneath and that he had thrown up on.

"It's like you don't want to be around me." Seungcheol said.

"I..." Joshua stumbled on his words. "It's not that." He weakly managed. He glanced down to his feet in their black converse sneakers over-hanging the stone wall. There were so many words and thoughts and matters trying to claw their way up his throat and come out, but, they just wouldn't. 

"So what is?" Seungcheol remarked.

Joshua side, leaning back on his hands and looking up to the night sky above them, strewn with a hundred million stars that shone like diamonds, all visible with a sky that was utterly cloudless, and, utterly neverending. "It's really hard to be a good son when you're around." Joshua whispered. He couldn't help been transported back to all the times when he was younger, and even now, when his parents asked him why didn't he have a girlfriend and that he should have one and how Seungcheol's parents always came to his defence and always nipped Joshua's own parents in the bud by snarling as only atheists or pagans did, "It's always you Christian cunts causing a problem!"

Joshua mused that he and Seungcheol's relationship only still existed to this day due to M. and Mrs Choi who had virtually locked horns in complete warfare with the Hong's, not letting their Christian beliefs, perspective, behaviour, manner and life getting in the way of the only children of the two couples. 

"Have you ever thought that maybe I'm not the actual problem?" Seungcheol said bluntly.

Joshua didn't say anything. He couldn't. He loved his parents dearly but it just hurt so much to admit aloud that they and their Church were the problem all of the time.

"Your God ought to be amazed at how nice I am to your old man after that." Seungcheol said. Joshua flinched.

One day Seungcheol had called out Joshua's name over the bluestone wall surrounding the prysbetry beside the Church in the Churchgrounds, and had asked M. Hong if he'd excuse his son for a bit of larking about. Unbeknownst to Seungcheol, the county Bishop was in the garden with the Hong's, and, while he thought that it was quite funny, M. Hong went around the other side of the garden wall through the side gate and punched Seungcheol in the face. 

"I know." Joshua whispered, hanging his head. He felt absolutely miserable. There was just nothing he could do or say...

Seungcheol shifted closer to Joshua on the wall, and put an arm around him. "Fair enough if your family don't want you calling out my name." Seungcheol murmured, his nose pressing up against Joshua's temple. "But everyone in the world would have your Father's testicles for calling out my name in the same sentence "I hope he dies of aids"."

Joshua couldn't help it. He burst out laughing, but, seconds later, tears were running down from his cheeks.

"I'm so sorry." His chest heaved. "I'm so sorry that they don't get it, Cheol..."

"S'right." Seungcheol murmured. "Christian cunts will be Christian cunts." He chuckled, but, not sadly like Joshua. "Let's get you home." He rubbed Seungcheol's back. "Mum'll be asking Dad in his urn if he could send down a sign to us two little shits that it's half-ten in a Cotswold village and she wants to go to bed without us crashing and banging about."

Joshua laughed softly. "Yeah, you're right." He agreed. The two young men, now twenty, slid off the stone wall.

They walked beside each other through the winding, cobblestoned streets of the village.

"No matter what gets said, right, Shua?" Seungcheol said. "We're always goanna be us, and anyone who doesn't have the brain first-hand to get it and go fuck themselves, eh?"

Joshua nodded, feeling numb inside, but, at Seungcheol's rough, realistic words, a warmth came from within the deepest part of his chest and spread outwards.

"Yeah." Joshua whispered, tucking himself into Seungcheol's side. "Hm." He put his head into the crook of Seungcheol's shoulder and neck, and, Seungcheol's arm wrapping around Joshua's body, one hand slipping into one of Joshua's jeans pockets, they walked up the cream-stone driveway to Seungcheol's Mum's house, where, at that moment, the widow was picking up her husband's urn and asking him where their boys had got to now.


End file.
